When everyone gathered in hard hats to toss the dirt at the start of the massive Omni Boston Hotel project two years ago, the moment was hailed as a different kind of groundbreaking in the city.
The reason: Three dozen people of color invested $7 million in the Seaport project after the property owner, the Massachusetts Port Authority, decided to weigh minority participation as a significant factor in picking the winning bid.
Now, legislation inspired by that approach, dubbed the Massport Model, is nearing the finish line on Beacon Hill. The Senate passed an economic development bill last month with language that would require all state authorities to factor in race and gender when awarding bids for the disposition of real estate, air rights, and long-term leases. It would also impose a similar requirement for construction and design work.
The details will be hammered out in House-Senate negotiations after Labor Day; the House version calls for studying ways to diversify the participants in state construction projects, rather than mandating anything.
It’s hard to know how the Senate language will fare. But Senator Eric Lesser, the lead Senate negotiator, notes that economic empowerment and inclusion are Senate priorities. Land disposition can have significant consequences for wealth generation, he said, and should be considered an important tool for addressing existing inequities.
Widespread protests over racial inequality have put new pressure on policy makers to close the so-called wealth gap. Although Senator Nick Collins of South Boston was pushing this bill long before the racial tensions of the past three months erupted, the protests increase the likelihood that the economic development bill will feature some kind of diversity and inclusion language.
Collins was inspired, in part, by the advocacy shown by Linda Dorcena Forry, a Haitian-American executive at Suffolk Construction, when she held his seat in the Senate.
Collins said the approach has paid off at the $550 million Omni hotel project, still under construction, and a nearby office project on Massport land, as well as at the former Bayside Expo Center site in Dorchester, owned by the University of Massachusetts. (A team that includes the Black developer Kirk Sykes won the bidding for that property.)
Taking its cue from Massport, the Boston Planning & Development Agency this month decided to redo the bidding for three city properties after the details about minority participation on the bidding teams were deemed lacking. The BPDA also adopted Massport’s 25 percent rule: One-fourth of the scoring, when evaluating future competitive bids, would be based on diversity and inclusion.
The Senate legislation doesn’t mandate scoring criteria. Instead, it would require that each state authority establish programs to ensure the “fair participation” of minority-owned and woman-owned businesses for property dispositions and capital facility projects.
Still, Collins describes this measure as an important step toward “an economy that works for everyone.”
The bill is aimed at surplus real estate held by quasi-public agencies such as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, UMass, Massport, MassDevelopment, and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. The properties are owned by the public, Collins said, so everyone should have a shot when they are up for grabs.
Black business leaders see this legislation as an important step forward, as well.
To Colette Phillips, the public relations maven who runs the Get Konnected networking events, this is about providing a hand up, not a handout, to professionals on the outside looking in at Boston’s boom. Dave Madan, a founder of the Builders of Color Coalition, said the language, if made into law, would go a long way to helping close the state’s equity gap; his group is already working to help its members take advantage of these kinds of opportunities.
The head of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Jim Rooney, offers a surprising note of caution. It’s surprising because Rooney was one of the original architects of the Massport Model, nearly six years ago, when he ran the convention center authority and was working with Massport to plan the Omni site. Rooney, who was also once a top boss at the MBTA, said inclusion remains an important goal. But he worries about possible legislative overreach, particularly with quasi-public operations, and would prefer more studying of the language and its implications before a broad mandate is put in place.
Guess who is all in? This one might be surprising, too: NAIOP Massachusetts, the real estate development industry’s trade group.
NAIOP’s chief executive, Tamara Small, recalls some initial concerns in the development community about Massport’s approach. When the policy was announced, many developers weren’t sure where to find minority-owned businesses to join them, she said. Slowly, surely, that is changing.
Small’s group has been outspoken about the need to bring more diversity to the industry. There’s much more work to be done. The necessary shift might not happen, she said, without legislation like what’s in the Senate bill.
The Massport Model, she said, doesn’t mean eliminating the people you’ve worked with in the past. What it does mean is opening the doors to people you’ve never worked with before, and to a more inclusive future.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.